Early retirement on the grounds of redundancy or efficiency

Your employer may make you redundant (compulsory or voluntary). They may retire you on the grounds of business efficiency.

If you are a current member paying into the scheme, your pension is affected. It depends on your age and length of your membership in the scheme:

We do not calculate your redundancy payment. Please contact your employer for information about this.

Fixed term contracts

You may be entitled to early retirement on the grounds of redundancy if:

you are employed on a fixed term contract which ends
the work you do has ended as well
you are over age 55
you have more than 2 years membership.

If you are employed on a fixed term contract which ends but the work continues, you cannot take early retirement on the grounds of redundancy. For example, if you are covering for sickness absence. If you think this may affect you, please speak to your employer.

Estimate

You should ask your employer to request an estimate of your benefits from us. You can only request it through your employer as they need to give us your pay details. We use your pay details to calculate your estimated benefits. Your Annual Benefit Illustration provides an indication of your benefits, but an estimate is more detailed.

Re-employment

Kent County Council is the administering authority for the Kent Pension Fund. We have the policy that the Local Government Pension Scheme pension is not affected if a pensioner is re-employed with any employer.

The only exception is those:

who retired before 2006, and
received discretionary compensation added years from their employer.

Retirement process

Find out about the retirement process

Converting pension to lump sum

It is possible to convert some of your annual pension to provide an extra tax-free lump sum. Find out about converting some of your pension to a lump sum

Pre retirement course

We offer a free pre retirement course for those who have contributed to to the LGPS and are within 18 months of taking their pension. Find out about the pre retirement course

Change in legislation

The government announced that the earliest age that you can take your pension will be age 57 from 6 April 2028. Currently it is age 55. This does not apply to retirements on ill health which can be paid at any age.

Exit cap payment

The exit payment restrictions that were introduced by the government in November 2020 were revoked on 12 February 2021. It was concluded that the restrictions had unintended consequences. The government have stated:

it is still vital that exit payments deliver value for the taxpayer,
employers should always consider that exit payments are fair and proportionate, and
HM Treasury will bring forward proposals at pace to tackle unjustified exit payments.

If you think this could affect you, please contact your employer.